Using a pH Scale in Gardening

Check the pH level of your soil every so often. Learn about the influence of pH levels on gardening from an award-winning horticulturist in this free home landscaping video. View Video Transcript

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Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Stan DeFreitas, "Mr. Green Thumb", for On Gardening. One of the most important factors in any garden is that of the pH. Now pH stands for the term of the acidity or the alkalinity of the soil; sometimes called the sweetness or sourness of the soil. Sometimes you'll find some of the meters like this at some of you local nurseries. They work fairly well, they'll get you fairly close. And of course with pH it doesn't have to be right on a specific number. But you want to kind of find out if it's to acid, then you need to add some dolomite, if it's to alkaline, you need to add some soil acidifier. Now this is an old test kit, you can see here it has kind of a color chart. And simply you use the reagents, and reaction, and you get kind of, somewhere on this chart, where your pH will show up. Now if you use this chart, or you use the meter, make sure that your pH is about 5/5 to 6/5 on most of your plants. If it's to alkaline, or if it's to acid, many of the nutrients tend to start being tied up by the soil particles. In other words you're not going to get the results from your fertilizer that you've been applying. Fertilizer is one of those key elements that you really need to test, probably about every six months to a year. You know you do it for your pool, you order do it for your garden as well. For On Garden, I'm Stan DeFreitas, "Mr. Green Thumb".